Title: To the Flame
Author: A.E. Ross
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: February 3, 2020
Heat Level: 3 - Some Sex
Pairing: M/NB
Length: 20900
Genre: Paranormal, LGBTQIA+, nonbinary, mythical creatures/cryptids, college, psychic ability, paranormal
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Synopsis
Seattle boy Emerson Oakley is about to
find that the strangest thing about his first year at West Virginia’s Vance
University isn’t the neighbor in the next dorm over, who ghosts him after one
kiss. It’s the fact that he keeps having his life saved by a stranger who seems
to know about each accident before it happens.
Morrie Crisp, whose moth-person powers
finally emerged at the most inconvenient time, is just trying to figure out how
to deal with their crush on the boy next door, and all the different ways
they’ve seen him die.
As Emerson tries to get to the bottom of
who his pre-cog savior could be, his relationship with Morrie becomes extra
complicated as their undeniable attraction to one another becomes a liability
to both. Even as Morrie struggles to keep Emerson safe, Emerson is intent on
igniting the fire between them, into which Morrie is naturally drawn.
What is a reasonable response to falling
in love when the world itself is without reason? Unfortunately, neither one of
them has any idea.
Excerpt
To the Flame
A.E. Ross © 2020
All Rights Reserved
Emerson
October 7th, 2019
With the sound of the school radio’s
late-night show in his ears, Emerson Oakley pulled his wool-lined jacket more
tightly around his broad frame and threw dirty looks at any shadows he passed,
mean-mugging at would-be creatures waiting out there in the dark. Overhead, the
campus clock chimed midnight, its toll reaching long and deep into the West
Virginia night. Emerson clutched a stack of textbooks tightly under one arm,
his free hand gripping the strap of his rucksack. By October, the school’s
grounds had become a world of swirling fog. Frost was just beginning to lick at
the blades of grass sitting neatly in between the cobbled walkways. The paths
crisscrossed campus like a foursquare game. Just last month they had been full
of hacky-sacking upperclassmen.
As a born and bred Seattle boy, Emerson
was used to the sparkling mist that filled Puget Sound in spring, but the
autumn weather in Appalachia was a different phenomenon altogether. It hung
low, filling his nose and throat with damp cold as he made his way back to his
dorm beneath flicking streetlights. His fingers were beginning to numb just a
few steps in.
A loud crack rang out behind Emerson,
causing him to jump a couple inches in surprise before turning around to see
dazzling colors light up the sky. Some freshmen were letting off fireworks,
probably to celebrate their newfound freedom to make bad decisions. The illegal
rainbow starbursts snapped and popped in the sky over the astronomy building.
After reaching into his pocket, Emerson
turned up the volume on his phone, letting the pop-punk singer’s smooth voice
drown out any more unwanted jumpscare fodder. The song began to fade out as he
crossed out of the quad and into the parking lot. His dorm was just on the
other side of the empty gray stretch of pavement, and he could already see the
golden glow from his next-door-neighbor’s room. He couldn’t hear the pounding
bass that they loved to blast from morning to night, but he’d be in range soon
enough. There was a reason he spent every night studying in the library instead
of his dorm room. He didn’t know too much about the kid next door, but there
were two things he knew for sure: they went by Morrie, and they fucking loved
EDM turned up to 11.
“You’re listening to WVUX 69.1, The
Voice of Vance. That was local band Rubric with their latest hit, ‘Risk
Reward.’” The late-night host jumped in with perfect timing, his tone smooth as
silk. As he continued with a recap of the week’s news, something flickered at
the edge of Emerson’s vision. As he snapped his neck to the right, his breath
caught in his throat. For a split second, he was certain he saw a dark shape on
the roof of the nearest dorm building. The three-story brick building, Gryphon
House, happened to be one of the earliest built on campus and was probably
haunted, or at least that’s what the orientation tour guide had said. Of
course, the guide was a bored junior, so he easily could have been making it
up. Emerson was sure he had glimpsed…something. The large dark shape with flickering
edges, host to two glowing red orbs that, ideally, were not eyes—or were eyes
the better option?
Biting his chapped lip, Emerson turned
away and kept walking, trying to focus on the words coming from his earbuds.
“So, if you want to use the pool, you’re just going to have to wait until it’s
been emptied and disinfected…for your own good. Oh, and one more thing—Emerson
Oakley, watch your step,” the voice said just before another indie-punk hit
began to play, coming in strong with the snare.
Emerson jerked his head up so hard his
neck wrenched painfully. Scanning the empty parking lot, he took two nervous
steps back. Just then, another colorful crack rent the sky above him, followed
by a low whistle. It was the sound of a snapped power line slicing through the
air and landing half-submerged in the puddle where he had been standing one
second earlier.
Eyes wide, Emerson put a hand to his
chest, a tight rush of anxiety beginning to cloud his brain in a familiar way.
Music still pounding in his ears, he stared at the small sparks coming off the
black wire. If he hadn’t taken those two steps back, he’d be fried. Panic
rising in his throat, he let his logical pre-med brain take over and called
campus security to let them know about the potential danger before continuing
on to his dorm. This time, the music in his ears was drowned out by his own
heartbeat as he swiped his key card and hustled up the stairs to the third
floor.
Once he got into his room, the thump of
his chest was drowned out by the heavy bass of Morrie’s EDM playlist. He
basically knew the track listing by heart at this point. In a way, it was a
comfort as he tried to get a grip on what had just happened. It was strange
enough to get a cryptic warning from the college radio station, but he was
certain that the warning had come seconds before the fireworks had actually hit
the power line, assuming that was what had caused it to snap and swing into the
puddle at his feet. How they could have called that shot, he had no idea.
Emerson was pretty sure that the radio station was on the other side of campus.
He wriggled out of his heavy coat and
flannel then stripped down to a sweat-soaked tee and gray boxer-briefs. It was
hard not to think about what had just happened. He could have been deep-fried,
his body burnt up and smelling like the hot dogs that the power company used to
electrocute as an elementary school safety demonstration. Emerson ran his hands
over his whole body just to make sure it was still there. He had always been
barrel-chested with a soft, round stomach. Okay, he could admit he had a bit of
an apple bottom as well, but he loved his body. If he had gotten his body fried
up in a freak firework accident…well, he’d be dead and pretty upset about it.
Sitting down on his worn forest-green patchwork quilt, he tried to sync his
breathing to the rave beats from next door the way he’d learned in therapy.
Inhale.
Hold.
Exhale.
Hold.
He lay back on his bed and repeated that
routine for several minutes until the fight-or-flight feeling flowed out of him
and a reasonable calm remained. After grabbing his towel and toiletries,
Emerson slipped out his door and down the hall to the bathroom. He did his best
thinking in the shower, and boy, did he need a second to decompress.
The most important thing about the dorm
bathroom was not to focus on the floor. If you did, it was over. All kinds of
weird shit got caught in the grout that lined the beige tiles between
cleanings, and it was honestly better if you could just keep your head on a
swivel and ignore it altogether.
The second-most-important thing about
the dorm bathroom was not to focus on anybody else either. To be fair, that had
been Emerson’s modus operandi in every shared shower room he’d ever used:
junior-high gym class, JV football, the YMCA pool. But it was especially vital
now that he was in a university with all-gender facilities. He was proud of
Vance Uni for living in the twenty-first century, and the last thing he wanted
to do was make anyone feel weird or unwanted. That said, the scene was
deserted, so he turned the water on as hot as it could go and divested himself
of his earthly garments. The good burn of too-hot water relaxed his shoulder
muscles, despite the shitty water pressure.
With a clear head, he convinced himself
that there was surely a reasonable explanation for the DJ’s timely omen.
Though, even if there was, it still didn’t do anything to ease his mind about
the strange shape atop Gryphon House, which was still stuck in his mind.
After fluffing his hair dry and slinging
a towel around his waist, Emerson made his way back down the hall to his room,
just in time to cross paths with the Ghost of Electronica. Morrie was trying to
unlock their door with a slice of pizza in one hand and a two-liter of soda
wedged under their armpit. Emerson walked past and avoided glancing directly at
Morrie, feeling irritated that they left their music playing even when they
weren’t in the dang room. Or at least, that’s what he told himself. Certainly,
his animosity for Morrie was all about the volume of their music and absolutely
not about the way they:
1. Wore those tight black skinny jeans
with the knee-baring holes, and
2. Hadn’t spoken to him once since that
kiss during Orientation Week.
Obviously, neither of those things
factored into the equation at all, and it was definitely not true that either
of those two things ever made it harder to sleep than the pounding of a drum
machine.
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